


give you back the open sky, give you back the open sea

by copperiisulfate



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurs to him what a fool he'd been, drives him to laughter sometimes, self-deprecating but warm, to think that anyone could have kept up with her--to think that, of all people, he could have managed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give you back the open sky, give you back the open sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [autumndynasty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumndynasty/gifts).



> This spans the time period after season 1 to post-movie, hence some spoilers for the events of seasons 1+2 and few vague references to the movie.

 

Her eyes grow warmer as the ghosts grow colder (his father's, Kagari's, Kogami's, amongst so many others) and he doesn't know what happens between then and where they have arrived but something shifts. Perhaps it's the sense of freedom, a quiet wave that comes with accepting his declension. 

"You will be just fine, Ginoza-san," Tsunemori says once and smiles, a little hesitant.

He doesn't know if he will be, not quite yet. Maybe he'll get there, some day, somewhere approaching fine. He has at least managed to overcome the numbness in some shape or form. That must be progress of a sort, he tells himself. The metal of the arm has started to feel less foreign. The other frills--well.

Once he lets go of the last of his ego, it's comes as something of a surprise how little there is that he misses about being an Inspector. 

The ability to protect comes to the forefront of his mind but it's mostly a joke gone stale. It's not as if he had worked miracles back then, and you can't take much away from someone who has so little to lose.

He thinks of her, silhouetted by streetlights--the idea that he was ever the one protecting her, laughable really, another joke gone stale.

He wonders if maybe there might be a different way about it now, if they all might have better luck with her running the show. She had always been a natural anyhow.

Once he'd gotten over his childish bout of jealousy, there was little else but awe.

 

*

 

Soon enough, it becomes routine. He never thought he'd believe it but one certainly can get used to anything. 

She's a far better driver than he was anyway, far more patient. There's also something to be said about vantage points and the scenery the passenger seat affords. Little details about the city here and there that he'd never paid much mind to.

When it comes to the assignments, he finds that he can't help the quiet thrill, wonders if this was what kept Kogami going, but catches himself quick. That way lies madness and all. Regardless, they were always far more different than they were alike. He wonders what she thinks of him, knows that she does, never knows how to ask, never knows if it will be worth it. 

She's careful to not smell like smoke at work but he didn't spend half his life as a detective to not notice the box of cigarettes peeking out of the corner of her purse.

It's nothing she's trying to hide--is the thought that follows. He can't decide if that's any better or worse.

Except--the Kamui case has been spiraling and now, with Togane, he watches her teeter, grow a little reckless, lose that careful poise she has always held so admirably.

He begins to smell the cigarettes on her more and more often. Sybil can't contain her. The Bureau can't contain her.

Ginoza doesn't know what hope he should hold except that he persists in it beyond any rhyme or reason. 

It's not that he can bring himself to even touch her all often, thinks he might even be a little afraid when it comes down to it.

It's not that she'll burn him, not deliberately anyway. Rather, it's as if she might catch the contagion, all of his ill fortune and the the dirt and blood it brings.  
  
"We all have blood on our hands, Ginoza-san," she had said once, touching his shoulder when he'd been crouching by his father's grave. The wind had whipped through her hair and even amidst his fresh grief, he had wondered how she had stood there, so solid, so immovable.

Now, the wind hits her hair and he wants to run a hand through it and not really think too much about that. It's more reverence than anything, he tells himself.

They live in fields of blood and death and there isn't any time or place for anything else.

All he can do is stand next to her, try his own hand at solid, immovable, root his feet to the earth and try to do for her what she's done for him even when he doesn't necessarily always find himself capable.

 

*

 

It sounds easy in theory except for how she hardly stays still. 

It occurs to him what a fool he'd been, drives him to laughter sometimes, self-deprecating but warm, to think that anyone could have kept up with her, to think that, of all people, he could have managed it.

He hardly realizes it in time but, before he knows it, he's chasing after her like a shooting star, one that's burning bright, out of reach.

He tries to track her with his eyes alone when his body feels paralyzed.

In those moments, it's next to impossible not to think of just how much of his life he has spent paralyzed, stationary, watching and waiting.

He can't help but wonder what it would have been like if she'd never came: the smallest and quietest of storms, turning into a torrential tempest, knocking the world on its head, leaving everyone, everything reeling in her wake.

( _What colour?_ It's all over the walls, and now in his head, her voice echoing, resonant.

_What colour am I?_

Clear as crystal. A diamond in the rough.)

He doesn't quite figure out the name for it, the budding warmth. It must be pride, he thinks. He's so proud of her. It's safe enough and not entirely untrue.

 

*

 

The illusion shatters some months after the incident on the Shambala Float. She runs interference on a case, tries, as always to minimize casualties and collateral damage, throws herself in the midst of the crossfire.

(It's perhaps the only time she makes him wish he'd never met her. It would have been easier then, all of this. No, even then, he knows he's lying.)

It's when he's yelling for a medic as Kunizuka's eliminating the last of the threats, carding his hand through her hair, catching a knot where it's crusting with blood in one corner. This is never the way he'd pictured it. She's a fighter, the strongest one he knows. She's his hero, his--everything he has left.  
  
"Tell me," he starts. "Tell me about your grandmother, about your friends. Tell me about the academy," trying to keep the tremor out of his voice as the sirens drown him out, as the ambulance arrives and she grows colder and colder. 

Her eyes are wide, afraid. She opens her mouth but no words come out.

Even here, even now, he hates that he can't conjure a single good memory, nothing that isn't encased in loss and death. 

" _Tsunemori!_ " He needs to keep her conscious, keep her awake, keep her fighting, keep her thinking, keep her going and doing what she does best, because without her, there's no way to keep everything else going. Still, in this moment, he can hardly thing of anything else, feels little else than utterly, utterly selfish.

He needs to keep her--needs her, _needs her_.

 

*

 

In the medical bay, she's hooked up to a breathing tube and three separate lines. He watches the machine pump air in and out of her lungs, some ghastly sort of caricature of life and it's only when a nurse tells him that she will be breathing on her own by night that he can feel himself exhale.

Kunizuka sits next to him, hands him a glass of something hot. He doesn't question it, just drinks in silence.

"It's going to be alright," she tells him. He doesn't ask why people insist on saying that when it only ever gets worse. "It's hard--unbearable really," she says, "but I understand."

"Do you?" He immediately regrets asking, tries to remind himself that there are others who are shaken too. He's not the only one counting on Akane. Every single person in this nation who hasn't been swept up by Sybil's indoctrination likely is.

"Yes and no," she looks away. "Look, if Shion were--"

"It's _not--_ " he cuts her off, again, unthinking.

"Isn't it?" She asks it gently.

"We're not--" he says through his teeth, and somehow, the fact of this cuts deeper than his demotion, cuts deeper than so much that he's lost. The universe is laughing at him again and again. "How could you even think--"

"Gino," she says, hand on his arm, an attempt at comfort. "You've been so strong for so long, both of you. Just because you don't say it or act on it, doesn't mean it isn't there."

He's too exhausted to argue, doesn't ask her what the point even is. In so many ways, Tsunemori belongs to another realm entirely. What does it accomplish to gaze at the sky anyway? Besides, they all have bigger battles to fight. 

Maybe, one day, this war will be over and there will be springtime at last. He thinks he might tell her then if they live to see it.

 

*

 

She wakes up before he does.

He startles awake in his chair at the sound of an alarm beeping, and the footsteps of the nurse who comes and goes after replacing the IV bag.

Over time, he had forgotten how small her frame was in actuality. It's a strange byproduct of something that happens when you spend too long with someone, he'd always thought. You forget what they looked like when you first met them, what they must look like to others who don't know them well, not beyond appearances. She'd made up for her size with her mind, her heart, her entire presence, and it was all so much greater, so much more striking and impressive than anyone he'd ever known. Except, here, in this hospital bed, surrounded by wires and blankets, she seems to be drowning a little in it all. 

"Hey," she says. Her voice is small, a little hoarse from the recent extubation.

"Hey," he mirrors back, trying in vain to overcome the tightness in his throat. It's almost comical how neither of them can come up with words.

He gives up on the effort altogether, leans forward in his chair and makes to reach for her hand but doesn't quite take it, brushes his fingertips by her wrist before settling his hands on the blankets.

"The academy," she says, a little louder now and clearer, "taught me a lot of things, like how to communicate the safety of others, how to approach a case, how to protect myself--"

"Didn't teach that bit well enough," he can't help but chide, and it draws a small smile out of her. 

"Maybe not," she agrees amicably, "but you asked me earlier to tell you about the academy. I heard you and wanted to but couldn't do it. Not then."

"Tsunemori--"

"Call me Akane. Please. Anyway, I meant to say that academy certainly taught me a lot, but my real teachers were at Division 1. Everyone, but especially Masaoka-san, Kogami-san, and you."

"Not bad if you grew up with the dream of becoming an Enforcer one day," he holds back a wry laugh.

"I mean it," she says, endlessly sincere, as always really. "The academy and what I learned there feels so far away now in comparison."

"I still remember your first day," he says. It feels almost taboo to talk about now, that era, back when their roles were reversed, and even then, she'd been saving him from his worst version of himself. "You were the most brilliant rookie anyone had seen in years." And then, a little quieter, he adds, "I used to think I had you all figured out. I know better now. There was so much that no one had to teach you and was just who you were. It got us through. That said, it's been an honour to see you grow."

She laughs at that as if he's told a particularly hilarious joke. It's a little musical, and yet, a little old beyond her years.

"Likewise," she says. "You don't need me to tell you this but you've changed, and please don't take this the wrong way but...I'm glad."

"I used to not be so glad about it," he sighs, "but slowly, I think we might be getting there." He's not sure if it's just that he's finally recovering from the adrenaline or if it's the sheer relief of having this, her, breathing, speaking, sharing space with him, alive when he'd thought for a moment--for so many moments, that he'd lose all of it for good, that shuts the rational part of his brain off and makes his tongue a little loose. "It's probably your fault. Very likely, as a matter of fact." 

She laughs again, lighter than before. "Take some credit. It's likely yours too."

And then he thinks about what Kunizuka said and then tries in vain to no longer think about it and the words come tumbling out before he can stop them. "Speaking of faults, I know that this is bigger than you, bigger than all of us, what you take on every single day, but I need you to be careful." He can't help but stare at the cut at the side of her mouth, likely from the emergent intubation, and it's almost comical that this is the thing he fixates on, not the gunshot wound that's bandaged up or the IV lines or bags of medications and fluids keeping her here. In some ways, it's almost grounding. "Look, I know you can't promise that you won't do the same thing again if needed, and I am trying not to be selfish by asking something impossible of you but I'm not sure how."

"Ginoza-san," she says, and in that moment it makes him suddenly self-conscious that his hand is still next to hers. "I have never known you to be selfish."

"Akane," he says, for the first time out loud, and it comes out a bit breathless. He gains some strength to persevere--all their separate realms be _damned_ for just a moment--by the way her lips part in mild surprise before they curve into a small smile in response. "Everyone else I ever loved is gone. You're the--"

His words die down in his throat as she covers his hand with hers. Just when he expects her to withdraw, she shifts to lean closer instead, the change in position making her strain and wince for a fraction of a moment but she smiles right through it.

_Typical,_ he thinks, feeling immensely fond as he tries to help her by bridging the distance himself, shifting to sit at the edge of her bed. 

"We're not all that different." She brings her hands gingerly to his face, then her arms around his shoulders. "Everyone else I love is also gone but I want to thank you for staying."

All her wires and lines nearly encase him and it hits him like something sharp that even now, even here, fresh from the brink of her own death, she is still the one protecting him, containing all his wildest fears and insecurities. 

He wants to laugh but finds it easier to let her do what she's been so skilled at doing all along. How foolish he'd once been to think he could overcome this tide with something as silly as his own mess of a heart. Careful to keep her from further discomfort, he relaxes in her arms, knows now that there is nothing for him, nothing he'd rather choose, but to follow the pull, go wherever it may take. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Florence + the Machine's 'Landscape'


End file.
